The Art of Audiobook Narration

Danielle Muething (00:00):
I have seen feedback to authors who've used AI as their narration, and it is not good. I think at this point a lot of people want to support the human side of things. They're still on the side of the humans. So please, I hope that lasts forever. I hope that we never get to a point where we just say, well just let the computers do everything because art is about the human soul. You know, that's what it is. If you're letting the computer do it then you've lost all the soul in it.

Laura Maylene Walter (00:32):
Welcome to Page Count, presented by the Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. This podcast celebrates authors, illustrators, librarians, booksellers, literary advocates, and readers in and from the state of Ohio. I'm your host, Laura Maylene Walter, the Ohio Center for the Book Fellow and author of the novel BODY OF STARS. Today we're taking a behind the scenes look at audiobook narration. Danielle Muething and Gary Leo Smith, two audiobook narrators based right here in Ohio are joining us today to shed light on this career, as well as provide some tips for authors who hope to see their manuscripts transformed into audiobooks. Danielle and Gary, welcome to Page Count. Thank you so much for being here.

Danielle Muething (01:15):
Thank you for having us.

Gary Leo Smith (01:16):
Thanks for having us.

Laura Maylene Walter (01:18):
You are both members of Ohio Audiobook Narrators, which is a support group for professional and aspiring audiobook narrators in Ohio. So since our podcast Page Count has an Ohio focus, I was wondering if you could each just briefly introduce yourselves to our listeners, maybe let them know what part of Ohio you're in and let us know how you got into audiobook narration in the first place. What drew you to this line of work?

Danielle Muething (01:46):
I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio. I got started with audiobooks back in 2019. I did theater, professional theater before starting in audiobooks and I did a show with a girl named Jennifer Jill Araya, and she got into audiobooks first. So I asked her, I said, how did you do that? And she helped me get started. So yeah, it's as easy as that reaching out to any other narrator and saying, hey, how do you do this? And for the first year when I was doing it, I had a bunch of other jobs. And then when lockdown happened, when Covid happened and everything locked down, I spent the year concentrating on audiobooks. And now, now that's what I do. Yeah.

Gary Leo Smith (02:26):
Well, my backstory's a little more prosaic probably. I've always listened to audiobooks for years and I just got curious one day as to how they were actually made. And I had no particular background in music or recording or anything, but there was a seminar at the local library in Westerville. I went down there and there was a fellow there who had done audiobooks and he talked about the process and even handed out a free book, you know, AUDIOBOOKS FOR DUMMIES. And I read it from cover to cover and I think I can do this, but you know, I'm getting your retirement might be a good time to start another gig because I'm a recovering advertising art director. Anyway, so I started auditioning. I've taken some classes, as has Danielle, and we got to work on our craft to get it better. But the, one of the biggest ways to get better is start auditioning and being critical and having people listen to you. So I've been at this about five or six years now. I just do it on the side. I don't, I can't claim it's a full-time thing at all. But I've done over 30 books and stories so far. So, always looking for a new project. And I live in the Columbus area. I live in Hilliard.

Laura Maylene Walter (03:34):
I'm guessing back in the day it was more where the narrator had to go to a physical studio. Maybe you had to live in a certain kind of place to do this. And now of course our world has changed. And my guess is that you both have home studios, but can you talk a bit about that, about where audiobook narrators need or don't need to be located?

Danielle Muething (03:53):
I'm hanging out in my home studio right now. That's kind of the thing now is anybody can do it from pretty much anywhere. Yeah, as long as you have internet.

Gary Leo Smith (04:00):
That's true. Yeah, I did a lot of research. You can find a lot of things out on YouTube obviously, you know, you can fix your car, you can fix your computer, anything. But I watched a lot of YouTube videos on how to build a home studio and you can spend almost no money and build a sound suppressed area that you can work in because what you're trying to do is make it so that your voice is the only thing in there. You don't have echoes, you don't have background noise. And sometimes that's tough when somebody's running their leaf blower at three o'clock in the morning. But you can do it. When we built this house, I located an interior closet that I was going to turn into my studio and it worked out pretty good.

Laura Maylene Walter (04:39):
Well I'm curious about the audition process or how a new narrator might get their start in this business. How does that work?

Danielle Muething (04:46):
There's a website called acx.com and that's where most narrators are going to go to get started. It's free to sign up and it's connected to Amazon and Audible. There are auditions posted pretty much daily anywhere from royalty share projects, which is where you share a portion of the royalties, the money that's made through the audiobook, up to per finish hour fees. It just kind of depends on what you're looking for, but as a narrator you can go and you can audition for anything and everything you want.

Gary Leo Smith (05:17):
Danielle is exactly correct. Most people start on ACX, you can do it free. Things are published or things are put up for audition every day and you just pick the project you want to do or something you'd be interested in and audition, upload the file and hopefully the author picks you. And that's true for almost any publisher. Most publishers do it that way. Nobody goes into the studio much anymore.

Laura Maylene Walter (05:41):
I'm glad you brought up publishers because I'm so curious. So is ACX mostly self-published work and the authors are picking you directly? Can you break it down for our listeners the difference between say a major publisher or a mid-size or smaller publisher versus someone who is self-publishing their own books? How is the audition process handled? How are audiobook narrators being selected in each of those cases?

Danielle Muething (06:06):
There's a lot to unpack in all of that. Yeah, yeah. Let's see. I'll try to stay it as simply as I can. ACX is, I would say mostly independent, but you'll find some publishing, not the big ones, not like the big five, but like you'll find publishing houses that do use ACX to find people. Then there are other websites that have publishers attached to them and they'll find you through there. You also can sign up, you know, get onto the, oh my gosh I just lost the word...roster of a publishing company. Once you're able to get onto that, then they'll send you the auditions. Yeah, there's a lot of different tiers and it's kind of like how much work have you done? What is the quality of your work, what is this? And then you kind of reach out to these places. And like Gary was saying, you want to have that training under your belt before you start reaching out to some of these bigger places. Another way to get auditions is to look for books that you like that don't already have audiobooks and reach straight out to that author. You know, first you want to make sure that they own the rights to their own book, because sometimes they don't <laugh> and then you can ask them straight up, I'm an audiobook narrator, I'm interested in being your narrator. You know, have you ever thought of that? And then you open a conversation with them and hopefully you get the book.

Gary Leo Smith (07:25):
Yeah, this ecosystem she's describing is very complicated and varied and there are all different flavors of how you get to an audiobook or get to audition. I would say for somebody starting out ACX is the place to go to get experience. Not necessarily to stay there but you don't get projects in front of you that may not pay much. If anything, I've done several books that are still under my name that have yet to generate more than about 20 bucks <laugh>. But it is a place to get experience and get some titles under your belt. And as you grow and get stronger, you will, as Danielle mentioned, there are independent publishers you can get on their rosters, you can, you can do some pay to play sites, things like that you'll find. So you've got to, you know, reach your tentacles out a lot of different places to stay busy. It isn't just one path anymore.

Laura Maylene Walter (08:14):
Yeah, this is so interesting because I'm approaching this as a writer and as an author and I feel, I'm probably asking questions that writers who are completely new to the publishing world come and ask me about publishing a book. Do you know what I mean? Like there are so many different avenues. Maybe you want to self-publish your book on Amazon, maybe you're trying to get the agent and go for the big five. So there's such a range and I can tell that it sounds to be the same for audiobook narrators. That it's you know, not one size fits all and just like a writer that you have to grow your career and develop it over time. So I'm really curious about that. You mentioned Gary "getting better". How has your narration developed over time? In what ways do you think you have improved or grown and what are ways you maybe hope to continue to do so in the future?

Danielle Muething (09:02):
For me, sound wise, things have gotten much better when I go back and listen to some of my early books. It's not that I think they sound bad, but I'm also like I can hear the difference. Because I started out in the closet as well, a closet upstairs that was surrounded by clothing and <laugh>, you know, definitely a different sound than having a booth that you sit in. Again, it wasn't bad, it's just different. And I've learned a lot about the equipment that I should have. I don't think I had the best equipment starting out and now I have more professional equipment. Again, I don't think you have to spend a ton of money but you know, you want to sound good. That's one part of it I think being able to get that sound right. The other thing for me is I think just performance wise, I came from the theater so you're acting to the huge audience to the huge space and with audiobooks you want to keep it more intimate. And so having to pull back that huge thing that I was always doing and bring it more into a personal space was something I had to learn. And I still work on that. Always growing, always learning.

Gary Leo Smith (10:08):
I think learning to perform the book because I was kind of afraid of fiction when I first started because I didn't know how big to play this. I'm not an actor by trade. I did a lot of it in high school and college, but not anything since then. No, no theater or anything since then. But I still have that back in my head so I understand it. And as she said, how big do you play this when you're right there with a microphone? What I found was I had to play it big because I'm normally so reserved. Being in the business community, you don't put a lot of emphasis on things. But I realized it's actually better. Even the nonfiction books that I read a lot of initially, need some of that in order to bring them alive. You know, it's more than reading, it's performing the book and to get my habit back into reading it demonstrably was what I've been struggling with over the last couple of years. And I'm at a place where I'm okay, I'm not going to play over the top, but I want to push that, that and you got to develop characters and lots of other things like that too.

Laura Maylene Walter (11:05):
Yeah. Let's, let's talk about fiction for a moment because I'm thinking about the writers who listen to this podcast and as writers, you know, we spend so many hours alone working on our books and then we have a manuscript and a lot of us might not think about the narration part of it when our books are turned into audiobooks. So can you walk us through what is your experience, just as an example with a novel, what is it like for you to go in and record it? About how long does it take? What's your approach? Just what is the kind of day by day, hour by hour experience of narrating this book? Let us know what it's like for you.

Gary Leo Smith (11:40):
You know what they tell us to tell people that are interested newbies, you know, well before you invest in equipment or do any of this, go in a closet and read to yourself for about six hours straight. And if you think you can do that day after day, you've got some sense of what our life can be like. It's not quite that bad I don't think. And you might disagree but I, it's not that bad. But you are, you know, reading to to nobody, you almost pretend you're talking to somebody and you've got all these characters. You have to develop different voices. You might inflect a little bit so it's not for everybody, but if you love books and you love reading and then when you read, you hear the book in your head or you see it cinematically, that's a clue you might be interested in this, you know, it might work. A novel is a marathon, there's no question about it. I've done shorter books but I've done a couple that push the 7, 8, 9 hour range and you spend a lot more hours finishing what you've done than just in the booth. And Danielle, you can speak to that more, but the pre-finished hour rate we're paid doesn't begin to cover the amount of hours that we spend finishing a book.

Danielle Muething (12:46):
I think the average, what they say, I don't talk as fast as they say, but 9,300 words equals a finished hour. I think I'm around 9,000 words for a finished hour. Everybody's kind of different. But they say on average think 9,300 words is a finished hour. To finish an hour can take anywhere depending on who it is, who you're working with, anywhere from 6 to 10 hours for one finished hour. So that's why you're doing a 10 hour book. You look at that per finished hour rate and you think wow that's high. But then you have to think of all the work that goes into that. You know, you're looking at a lot of time. And so that's what we don't charge by the hour because like I said, it can be anywhere from 6 to 10 hours per finished hour.

Gary Leo Smith (13:33):
Daniel's exactly right. They say the industry standard I think is six hours per finished hour, but I have never hit six hours <laugh>. I am slow, I take my time. And if it's heavy with a lot of editing and character changes and stuff, that just takes more time than just a straight read. You'll pre-read the book that takes as long as it takes to read the book. Sometimes I go pre-read part of it or I read it again just before I do it to make sure I've got the sense of place and I'm going to hit the notes right. And then you narrate it so you've got that time and you'll stop and start some in there just because you don't like the way you said it so you go back and do it again. And then you've got raw files have to be processed for pauses and noises taken out. And we have software that we use to do that. Plus you have to proof it in there too. You, you're going to make mistakes and you won't hear them while you're doing it necessarily. But we have software that can catch that, I use Positron. So you've got all that to get to files that you think are perfect and then you send them off and the author may have a legitimate concern about something. You may have to go back in and make changes. So you eat up time pretty quick.

Danielle Muething (14:40):
There is a recording process called 'punch and roll'. Some do it, some don't. Basically what it is is if you mess up you can start back right before the mess up and seamlessly go back into that sentence. And so you have less editing to do at the end. That doesn't mean no editing, that means less editing. But then there's other people, they'll do the clicker method when they mess up. They'll click like a dog clicker or they'll, they'll snap or they'll make a loud sound so you can kind of see where that audio space is. And then they'll do it again and then they'll go back and take out the mistakes that they made. And so that's a part of editing. Now you can farm all that out so you can get someone to edit for you to mastering, all that stuff. And that can go into that cost of a per finished hour book as well.

Danielle Muething (15:30):
The big publishing houses, they do it for you so you just send them the raw audio and they do everything else for you, but you can pay someone to do it for you as well. So again, when you look at that per finished hour rate, you have to think of all that stuff. It's all the work, all the editing, it's maybe I'm paying someone else to do it, but even if I'm not I'm going to pay myself to do it. You know? So all of that is part of it. Yeah, that was one thing I was going to say about the whole practice of sit down and read a book out loud in a closet by yourself. You know, read it out loud. Every time you mess up you have to stop and you have to come back and you have to make sure every voice sounds right. So if you've given a character, a voice, you have to make sure it's right every time. And so yeah, it's such a crazy, I never realized how hard it was until I started doing it and I mean I love it. I have a great time doing it. But there's a lot <laugh>.

Gary Leo Smith (16:20):
Authors should keep in mind too if they decide to narrate their own book that they're biting off a huge chunk. And as Danielle says, if you don't have those skills and everything from proofing and sound editing and mastering, you're going to have to pay somebody to do that for you. It's more efficient for us because you know, we know our part of it, but most all of us learn those things so we can do them for ourselves if we need to. Whereas an author, he is going to read one book, she's going to read one book and he's got to have all these skills right then to take care of it...Plus a studio.

Laura Maylene Walter (16:53):
Yeah, it's a huge undertaking. I can definitely tell and it's so interesting to me because I'm just listening and it's exactly like writing a book just in a different form where you need to know how to edit, you need to gain these skills yourself. You can try to farm them out some of them, but then you're paying a lot of money and it's better in my opinion to just develop those skills on your own and be able to do it. Do you, I think I know the answer but I'm going to ask anyway, do either of you ever go back and listen to a book that you narrated yourself or once you're done, are you done?

Gary Leo Smith (17:26):
Occasionally I'll go back to try and find something I might have thought I did particularly well for a reel. You know, maybe mark this section...well I really nailed it there, I think I'll go back and get that little chunk and use it for an audition. In fact, I forget most of the book after I read it. Did I say that? I don't remember saying it <laugh>. That's kind of it because your brain just doesn't have space for all that stuff.

Danielle Muething (17:48):
There was one time we were on a road trip once, it was kind of early on in it and we always listened to audiobooks on road trips and my husband said something about oh, we should listen to one of yours. So I pulled up one and we were just both kind of like, okay, this is weird. I don't...Let next. So <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (18:08):
It's so funny. I was just thinking like when I publish a book I don't want to go back and reread it. Do you know what I mean? I worked on it for so long and I was also curious because, so my novel BODY OF STARS is my only book that is an audiobook. It was produced by Penguin Random House. And so I had a producer who suggested a name to me as the narrator from I assume their roster of narrators. And I said that sounds great, you know, I didn't have anyone in mind or I didn't really feel prepared to listen to audition processes, but I have definitely not listened. I think the narrator, I'm sure, I've heard she's done a great job. I've heard from people who have enjoyed it but the thought of listening to my own book even when it's not my voice, absolutely not. I just couldn't do it. It's so funny. Like this is the creative process, you just sort of are divorced from it after it's out of your hands I guess. Yeah.

Gary Leo Smith (18:58):
Some authors are very, very want to be very hands-on about their audiobook version.

Laura Maylene Walter (19:04):
Yeah, tell me about that. What is that like? What does that mean for them?

Gary Leo Smith (19:07):
I like their input up front. I want to hear what they expect, but they also have to realize that what we're doing is kind of a creative process building on top of what they've done. And a lot of authors I think don't read their book out loud so they don't know how awkward some of the phrasing can be if you read it. But we have to get around that sometimes. But the thing is, we'd love to hear what they think upfront because they're hearing it in their head, but we may not be sounding like they hear it but we might be better and they need just need to be open to that process.

Danielle Muething (19:38):
Yeah, something I always do, especially when I'm working with a new author is, well I have a whole thing, I talk to them about my process and I tell them everything. But yeah, I do a character sheet if they're interested and basically when I'm reading the book I make notes for myself even if they don't want to weigh in on it. But I'll make notes for myself everything about the character that's in the book, you know, how tall are they, what they look like, does it mention an accent, you know? And then I will ask the author, do you have a person in mind when you think of this character or is there more you can tell me that isn't in the book about this character? Especially in a series. Does this person in book three all of a sudden become the villain when they're not in book one?

Danielle Muething (20:24):
You know, something like that that's going to change the way that person sounds. So that is certainly something that I do upfront with authors just because yeah, you want to make sure that you're all on the same page and that's also what an audition is for, for them to hear you. I've also written books, that's my new, my new venture, but I've listened to people narrate little sections of my books and I think it's interesting to hear the different ways people do it. You know, you can hear, oh I like the way that one sounds. That sounds like how I hear it in my head, you know, so that's a helpful process as well.

Laura Maylene Walter (21:00):
Yeah, I think there's some good advice there for writers just generally on the craft level, which is to read your work out loud. And I think as writers we hear this all the time, read your work out loud, it helps you catch so many things and that's true. But I don't always read my work out loud in part because it is such a job and I don't like the sound in my own voice...Overlook the fact that I'm on a podcast. I have a podcast. But but I do know when my novel was going through the publication process, I think it was the first pass pages, I really wanted to make sure I didn't let any typos or anything slide by. So I read the whole book out loud. I think it took two or three days of just solid reading out loud. My cats loved it because they were just sitting on me while I was reading.

Laura Maylene Walter (21:40):
But it was a lot. I was exhausted by the end. I did catch a lot of things and you do hear it differently when you say it out loud. So writers take this as a sign that you should be reading or work out loud, catching those awkward phrases because it's not your narrator's fault if it sounds awkward when it's in the writing. So, I did have some questions about what authors should expect for their audiobook or what they should look for in a narrator. And Danielle, you already gave some good tips about sort of listening and finding the narrator who maybe matches what you'd hear in your head. Are there any other tips either of you have for authors who might be new to this, who have written a book and are trying to find a narrator, maybe even in terms of payment, that this is a real job that you're both doing and audiobook narrators deserve to be paid. So what else should authors expect?

Danielle Muething (22:29):
One thing is when you put together your audition, it shouldn't be more than five minutes long. You're going to know within the first 30 seconds to a minute if you're going to want that person. Five minutes of audio for us is a lot to put together. So that's about for me around 5 to 700 words, which doesn't sound like a lot but again you're just getting kind of that initial sound you want to hear, okay, this person I can work with. So think about that when you're putting that together, you want to think about what do I want to hear? Do I want to hear certain voices? Do I want to hear them do more narration than voices? If it's a horror, you want to find a scene that's scary so you want to hear if they can capture that, you know, whatever it is, action scenes, whatever.

Gary Leo Smith (23:16):
Starting authors may not know what kind of money they're getting into or how this process works. Nuts and bolts wise, there are three main ways that you pay for the narration can vary from publisher to publisher, but you know you can pay per finished hour, which we've kind of been talking about, what seems like a big dollar amount per hour, but it covers a lot of ground and that's with the narrator. You can also do some other deals that are called royalty share and royalty share plus. Royalty share is you're deferring any profits or royalties because the publishing house is taking on the cost of the production. You're saying to the narrator you will take a share of royalties and I'll take a share of royalties and about 60% or sometimes more will go to the publishing house for doing all this work. Or you can pay the narrator a little bit per hour upfront so our basic costs are covered. And then we would still share in the royalties at the end. So you can get a book to market relatively cheaply, but when you go with ride share with an experienced narrator, a lot of us won't take those on because we may look at the book and know it's not going to sell very well so we're not going to likely to make much money. Whereas you pay a good rate per finished hour, you're going to get top talent looking at it and so your book's going to be executed as well as possible.

Laura Maylene Walter (24:32):
Every writer I think in the world has had someone come up to them and say, hey, will you ghost write my book for me? And you know, I won't pay you anything, you'll just share in the royalties when it sells. And you think how many hours that would take of work to make maybe $2 on the backend. So I could definitely see that being only in certain cases would that maybe be worth it.

Gary Leo Smith (24:54):
If John Grisham comes to me and says, I want you to do my book for royalty share <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (24:58):
Sure.

Gary Leo Smith (24:58):
I'm all about that, all day long because he's going to sell a million copies.

Laura Maylene Walter (25:02):
Right. And I imagine there's other cases where it could be useful where someone has, for example, a business book and they have such a good network and they're doing a bunch of events and you know that they're going to be selling a lot. Like maybe that would be a good idea. But in general, maybe a lot of authors who are writing their first novels doing this need to think about being able to pay the narrators an appropriate amount. And can you share with us just some general ranges? I know this would depend on the experience level of the narrator and how long they've been doing it, but on the low end, for a narrator who might be new to this, getting into it, how much money they might make per finished hour or otherwise versus someone who has been doing it for a long time who might be a higher earner. What are the ranges?

Danielle Muething (25:43):
So here's the thing, industry standard, and I think it's gone up a little, but it's $250 per finished hour. That's where you start. Now will people do it for less than that? Yes. Are there people that do it for a lot more than that? Yes, but I think it's a really good baseline to start at $250. Again, you'll find people who will do it for less, but then you're also getting into the people who aren't as experienced. When you're looking at like royalty share plus the plus is for that farming out of the editing and the proofing and the processing. So you're looking at the plus part being a $100 to maybe $125 around there. And then with royalty share, it's just nothing upfront. I do want to say on with royalty share, I actually really like doing royalty share. I want to make sure that the author is excited about their book as I am.

Danielle Muething (26:37):
I remember I was talking to an author once, I didn't do the book, but I was talking to them and they were just like, well I mean it's not going to make any money. I mean I do royalty share with you, but it's just not going to make any money.

Laura Maylene Walter (26:49):
Well <laugh>.

Danielle Muething (26:50):
And I'm like, why would you think I'd sign on with you...

Laura Maylene Walter (26:52):
Right.

Danielle Muething (26:52):
If you have no trust in your book whatsoever? So the royalty share projects that I do are with authors who have followings put money into advertising. I'll even ask them, I'll say, can you share with me your sales on your physical book? Just so I can see if you are selling, you know? If you are not willing to put yourself behind your book or your audiobook, why should I? So it's not that I won't do royalty share, it's that I have to make sure that we're on the same page when it comes to that.

Laura Maylene Walter (27:23):
Yeah, absolutely. Just so you can make a smart decision of whether it will be worth your time. Because I can tell, I mean $250 an hour for finished hour, that isn't a lot when you add up all the additional hours you're spending on the book. So I could see that being a very important consideration. Well since we're on the topic of money and time and labor, I think we'll have to address the, maybe the dark side, which is AI. Has AI infiltrated this industry? What's the landscape with AI narration? Is that something you're worried about or what do you want people to know about AI's place in audiobook narration at this time or into the future?

Gary Leo Smith (28:05):
It's in a big state of flux, legally. There's a lot going on that hasn't been decided through courts. But in general I think AI is used a lot. In fact almost exclusively on very low end projects. If you've listened to, you know, Facebook videos that, you know, voiceover and some of these things, they dump that in AI and they don't even proof it because the AI might say something totally goofy, pronounce it goofy or whatever and they don't even change it. But I think it can be seen as a threat on the lower end right now. Not that it won't get better, but when it comes to two thirds of the books that are published, which are fiction, a human narrator is going to do so much better job than an AI. Because they can't act, you know, they're not sentient at this point. Although it may look like a cheap alternative in the beginning, trust me, it is not at this stage at all. And the publishers are...Danielle, I don't know how much you're up on some of what they're doing. Like Amazon will not accept anything voiced other than with their AI <laugh>. It's a very strange patchwork legal landscape and it's not ready for prime-time if you really want a good voice.

Danielle Muething (29:20):
Yeah, I promise I won't go off on it because I have in the past. I will say a couple things about AI though. One AI at this point is stolen. Stolen images, stolen words, it's stolen. So if you're using it, you are using stolen thing. The other thing is, I have seen feedback to authors who've used AI as their narration. And it is not good I think at this point. And I don't know what's going to happen in the future with it, but I think at this point a lot of people want to support the human side of things. They're still on the side of the humans. So please, I hope that lasts forever. I hope that we never get to a point where we just say, well just let the computers do everything because art is about the human soul. It's, you know, that's what it is. So if you're letting the computer do it that you've lost all the soul in it. So yeah, I'm not a fan <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (30:17):
I didn't expect [you were], and I think all of us are probably preaching to the choir a bit for the people who would listen to this of why narration, even if it were really good AI narration, why that is not the same, why it is not maybe as worthy and not why we're all in this. You know, just like writing a book and, and you're right. And so listeners, if you're not up on some of this AI stuff, I'll post links in the show notes, especially with how AI is being trained by stealing authors books and plugging it in. So I'll definitely include some resources for everyone there. Yeah.

Danielle Muething (30:50):
And yes it is coming into the audiobook and the voiceover world and trying to take all our jobs from us and you know,

Laura Maylene Walter (30:57):
Yeah. No.

Danielle Muething (30:57):
That's my job, I don't want it to go away <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (31:01):
On the sort of rights and legal side, do you have any advice for authors when it comes to their audiobook rights? You know, really being careful about your audio rights and knowing what you're doing. When I was published with Penguin Random House, it was sort of put into the overarching contract because that was a huge publishing conglomerate. But I know people who have sold their books to smaller publishers kept the audio rights and actually sold their audio rights separately for more money than they sold the book. So what would either of you say to writers out there in terms of their rights? I know it's a complicated issue, but just broadly, what should they be aware of when it comes to their manuscripts and the rights to the audio?

Gary Leo Smith (31:41):
Realizing that the author and the rights holder are not necessarily the same thing is important. And yeah, we could get deep in the weeds and, and I would be over my depth, but I would just say if you publish with Random House or some big audiobook publisher, you know, it'll be baked in. You won't make the kind of mistakes that you could make independently or where you're the only one casting an eye on your contract. So it's very important you understand those definitions and how contracts can run with you. So that's all I would say is know that you have to protect separate rights in that case.

Danielle Muething (32:15):
Yeah, definitely read your contracts, make sure, like if you're worried about AI, look for it in your contract. See what it says about that. If it doesn't say anything, have them put it in. If they're not willing to put it in, then you have to decide what you're willing to do at that point. I'm pretty adamant about making sure that AI, there's speech in contracts that say, you will not use my voice for AI.

Laura Maylene Walter (32:41):
Yeah.

Danielle Muething (32:41):
You know?

Laura Maylene Walter (32:42):
No, that's really smart and just a really basic reminder for writers that a contract can be negotiated and you should never be afraid to talk about a contract and to make changes and to work it out with the publisher or whoever you're signing it with. Yeah, absolutely. I'm thinking, again, I'm comparing your work to the work of a writer and we often try to advise new writers how to avoid scams. For example, scammy literary agents or publishers, etcetera. So AI stuff aside, is there anything else either new audiobook narrators need to be aware of or that authors should be concerned about to make sure they're protecting themselves when they're producing their work?

Danielle Muething (33:21):
One of the easiest ways to make sure you're not being scammed, especially on ACX, they've gotten a little better about it, but for a while there, stolen books were showing up everywhere, scams everywhere. Once you found something you like, and especially if you've been offered it, if you auditioned for it, you offered it, find that author outside of ACX, find them on Facebook, Instagram, wherever, even a website something and just reach out to them and be like, hey, I saw your book on ACX and auditioned. I just wanted to make sure that it's yours. I wanted to make sure that you're the one auditioning for it.

Laura Maylene Walter (33:56):
Just so I'm clear is the issue that people are stealing author's books, putting them up there, having them narrated and then collecting the audio without having the rights to the...that is bold.

Gary Leo Smith (34:07):
You can claim a book on Amazon as the author or the rights holder and they'll catch you eventually, but.

Danielle Muething (34:12):
So that's another thing. As an author, once you have a book out there, get your ACX account set up and claim all your books. And that way no one else can claim them. You don't have to do auditions, you don't even have to make an audiobook right away. But you can claim it and at least have it as yours. And then later if you have a publishing house who wants to do it, you can release it to them. But you know, it's just a good way to kind of make sure that you have it. But yeah, I know people that have done these 10 hour books or whatever and then months later ACX will just pull it. Amazon will just pull it and be like, you violated some right? And you get nothing. Because that person who scammed you isn't going to do the right thing and pay you so you have nothing.

Danielle Muething (34:55):
So again, reach out to your authors or rights holders, whoever it is that holds the rights to that book, reach out to them. Especially if you're going through ACX. Now once you get to a publishing house, you don't have to worry about it. But on ACX just make sure that you're auditioning for a real thing. You can also kind of tell when you read through even the audition and there's a ton of errors, spelling errors, grammatical errors that maybe it's not something you should pursue. We're not editors, we're audiobook narrators. If you're not giving me a finished manuscript, I can't do it.

Gary Leo Smith (35:29):
Yeah, I would back her up on that. As soon as you see an audition script that doesn't look professional, misspellings, just bad and you'll, it's easy to see. You've either got a really, well, I don't know what you got, you usually got a scam. But you know, some people actually just steal chunks of text and pack it together and make a book. May not even be English as a first language or even a second or third language. So, and I've been a victim of some of them early on, you know, just books that were crap and they were after promotional codes and things like that. Not selling books. A lot of narrators don't even go to Amazon and see if the book's been published. So that's the first line of defense. And if you're really committed, then check further because you're wasting a lot of time auditioning for things that aren't even real.

Laura Maylene Walter (36:14):
These are really great tips. Things I never would've thought of. And I'm guessing a lot of authors wouldn't think of it necessarily either if you know, they're new to this world and it's depressing, but man scammers maybe go read a book or something instead of doing this <laugh>.

Danielle Muething (36:28):
Right. Go have a life <laugh>.

Gary Leo Smith (36:31):
<Laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (36:32):
Can you please stop trying to steal things. That would be great. Thank you so much <laugh>. So I want to ask a few additional quick questions before we start to wrap up. Just things I'm curious about as narrators, is there a big difference to you if a novel say is in first person or third person? How does the point of view impact how you narrate the book, if at all?

Danielle Muething (36:55):
So with first person, you have to be in your character the whole time. So I've done both and I enjoy first person. The hard thing is I did two different books that were in the same universe and they were both from first person, but they were different first people. So I pitched the other one's voice up just a little bit higher. So if I ever had them meet they weren't going to sound the same. So you have to think about that kind of stuff. But when you're doing first person, so you're talking in that first person voice. Now you can still do voice for the other people in the story, but it's more like I'm telling this story, this person's telling this story. When you have your third person narrator, here's my narrator voice and then here's all the characters and they're all different from that main voice.

Gary Leo Smith (37:39):
Yeah. For me, because I'm probably not as strong on characters as Danielle, I like to find books that don't have 50 different characters. You have to remember and keep little snippets of their voices so you kind of can trigger how to sound like them. I like a small universe of characters to deal with. And yeah, when 80% or 90% of the book is either the internal voice of the narrator or the narrators talking, that's probably the best way for it to be. It's a little more challenging when you have to separate yourself as a narrator, as Danielle was talking about, and then all these other characters and they're all talking and things like that. It's a little more difficult.

Laura Maylene Walter (38:15):
What about non-fiction or more of a like a business book or something? I imagine that would be a completely different thing to narrate. Is that a little bit easier or just different? What are your experiences with that?

Gary Leo Smith (38:27):
It's for me, I like them. You can animate them some and that's probably what the author's looking for is just bringing some excitement to their ideas. But yeah, if you don't have characters to develop, it's much easier to pre-read and just, I go through those much quicker than I do a fiction book.

Danielle Muething (38:43):
I've never done non-fiction because I'm like, I want all the character <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (38:48):
<Laugh>. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. That's your mode.

Danielle Muething (38:50):
Some narrators aren't big into doing big characters or voices for everybody and then others are. And really it's just personal preference. There's no right or wrong there. Some people will tell you there's a right or wrong, but I don't think there is. I think, you know, it depends on your author.

Laura Maylene Walter (39:05):
Yeah. And it's just like the voice of a book of when you're reading. Right. People have different preferences, different styles, et cetera. I'm curious if either of you want to share any of your pet peeves about audiobook narration? For example, are there certain words that you struggle to get right on the first time that when you see the word your stomach drops or just other pet peeves or challenges that you'd like to share?

Danielle Muething (39:30):
Basked, asked, texted <laugh>. Yeah. Anything with the 'asked': basked, clasped...Those things. Oh, I'm always like <laugh>. Those usually need a couple takes before I get them. Right. And for some reason the word horror, I have a hard time with the word horror <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (39:51):
Horror. Now that I'm thinking of it...<laugh> rural juror, Is kind of...

Danielle Muething (39:55):
Rural, rural. Shouldn't be a real word <laugh>.

Gary Leo Smith (40:01):
When I'm narrating sometimes the simplest little turn of phrase can hang me up and I'll have to go through it five or six times. Like my brain locks up. It's not necessarily tongue twisters or anything, it's just some set of words will stop you. And of course the scamming people, they, they don't make me very happy that's definitely a pet peeve.

Laura Maylene Walter (40:17):
Yeah, definitely.

Gary Leo Smith (40:19):
AI. But we'll get by all of it.

Laura Maylene Walter (40:21):
This is a question for me that I might edit out later just for fun. But have you ever been working in your studio and realized that you forgot to hit record?

Danielle Muething (40:31):
<laugh> I don't think so.

Laura Maylene Walter (40:33):
Probably when you're doing it alone like that, it's probably not so likely. I was just curious.

Gary Leo Smith (40:37):
Well I'm watching it on my, on my screen watching it track. I'm reading off of a iPad usually because I can mark it up.

Laura Maylene Walter (40:46):
Do you record in in Audacity or a similar program?

Gary Leo Smith (40:50):
I use Audacity. You don't do you?

Danielle Muething (40:52):
I used to, but now I use Studio One. But there's so many options out there. But yeah, Audacity's fine and it's free so you know. Yeah you can see it on the screen. So I'm trying to remember. I did one once where I found out later, this was before I had this whole setup. I was listening to it and I heard just this little click in the background and I don't even remember where it came from and I had to record a bunch of it. Re-record a bunch of it. Because I didn't hear that initially. Now I listen to it while I'm recording it as well so I know it's happening. But yeah, I remember being like, oh <laugh>, how'd that even happen? Yeah. But I don't think I've ever not recorded

Laura Maylene Walter (41:30):
Not asking for any reason. Anyway, this is recording though. I checked eight times.

Danielle Muething (41:35):
But even we're starting over <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (41:37):
I know, right? So most people I know, myself included, don't like the sound of their own voice or they hear it and they're horrified because it sounds different in our heads than it does when we hear it back. So I'm just wondering if you have advice for people who might be interested in becoming narrators but who worry that their voice isn't perfect or isn't what an audiobook narrator's voice should be. So in your mind, you know, is there an ideal type of voice or what would you like to say to people who are kind of curious but are worried that they don't have good enough voices for this?

Danielle Muething (42:11):
I think as you can tell, just by listening to both me and Gary, how different even our voices are and I know male female, but even just the tone of it or the timber or whatever, it's different. And even your voice, here's three people with completely different voices and none of them, there is no perfect. Well, there are probably some perfect narrators out there but you know what I mean. Like I think anybody can narrate. It's more about the training, it's more about connecting to the book and telling the story. I think all voices can be enjoyed just depending on who you are in the beginning. I do remember my first couple of books. I had a really hard time listening to myself like while I was editing and now I, I don't even recognize it as me. It's weird.

Gary Leo Smith (42:55):
Yeah, you think it's somebody else, you just think of it as somebody else almost, you know?

Danielle Muething (42:59):
And then every once in a while I go, oh, oh yeah, that's me talking. Oh right. Yeah. Like yeah but I think anybody can do it.

Gary Leo Smith (43:05):
I kind of feel like we're more conscious of how our voice sounds only in a critical sense. I'll narrate a lot of times in the morning because I'm relaxed from sleeping. My voice is a little deeper. I tend to get a little higher, a little strained during the day and the way I sound now, which isn't necessarily bad, but you don't want to narrate in the afternoon and then switch over to your morning voice and do part of the book. Because to my mind I hear the difference. Maybe the listener doesn't, but I do. So you get very conscious of where your voice is at any given time and what you sound like. But she's right, anybody can be a narrator. Maybe not Bobby Kennedy Jr. but that's a little tough to take. But most people's voices is quite acceptable and has some character. And that's what we're kind of looking for. If you can act, if you can perform, if you can read it well it builds the character.

Laura Maylene Walter (43:55):
That's interesting. It's also just like writing, right? I mean I've talked with many people who say, oh I couldn't listen to the audiobook of this book because I just didn't like the narrator. Right. I didn't connect with the narrator. But someone else loves that narrator and seeks out that narrator. Right? And also hearing you say that you prefer to narrate in the morning because your voice is maybe more relaxed before it gets worn out throughout the day. That's how I feel about writing. I like to write when I wake up so that I'm fresh and I haven't been distracted by everything in the day or worn down by the day. So basically audiobook narration and writing are exactly the same thing. Listeners, there's no difference <laugh> whatsoever.

Gary Leo Smith (44:32):
That's what we discovered. Yes. Well I'll do a commercial for Ohio Audiobook Narrators, which Danielle and I both belong to. It's on Facebook.

Laura Maylene Walter (44:41):
That was one of my last questions, which is if you could just let listeners and aspiring audiobook narrators know why being a part of an organization like that can be valuable for narrators.

Gary Leo Smith (44:53):
Well first of all, it's free <laugh> at this point. We don't charge anything to join. It can be found on Facebook/ohio audiobooknarrators. And if you're a newbie to have a group, we do most of our meetings by Zoom because we are located in different places. Several of our people are down in the Cincinnati area and we've even got a guy out in Oregon. So we can get together virtually and we share information, knowledge. We also have a small local publisher who's wanting to do audiobooks and she comes across all kinds of things. That's a conduit, a way to get to work, actually. Because we cast from first of all, from within our members.

Danielle Muething (45:30):
Just to kind of leapfrog off of that. Networking is so important in everything, especially as a narrator. Finding that group was very helpful because then you meet other narrators and then these books come out and you're connected to them and somebody may come to one of them and say, I have this book I want you to do. And they're like, oh, I don't have time, but here's these other people that I know. And so networking is so important.

Laura Maylene Walter (45:57):
All right, well because we're at the end of our time, I just have one last question and I'll let you choose. If you could each either recommend any audiobook or narrator that you just really enjoy, that you want to kind of spread the word and and have people be aware of it. Or you could tell us just your favorite thing about being an audiobook narrator.

Danielle Muething (46:19):
I wouldn't even know where to start with narrators. There are so many excellent ones. I will say if you're on TikTok, we have a thing called "fem narrator appreciation" or "fem narrator takeover" that happens. It's such a cool thing. The amount of support over there is incredible. So definitely go check out all those people and see who's doing what over there. What I absolutely love, I've always loved reading. So I get to read books that I don't think I would normally pick up or I would see, because I work with a lot of independent authors, so I'm getting to read these books that it's like, oh these are great. I just, I don't know if I ever would've found them outside of this.

Laura Maylene Walter (46:58):
That's lovely.

Danielle Muething (46:59):
And I believe at this point, almost every author I've worked with, we've become friends outside audiobooks. So I don't know that I would've met these people if I hadn't been doing this. So it's nice.

Gary Leo Smith (47:14):
I have a lot of narrators I like to listen to. I'm sure Danielle's got about 50 of them in her head. You know, the, the Johnny Heller's of the World and the Scott Brick's and guys like that. I like what they do. You know, they've got a range, but they stay in that lane and they're very good at top of the game. In fact, I was at a workshop with Johnny Heller and he brought something out of me one time when we were sitting there. I don't even remember, I just blew out of my head. I don't have a memory of it. But friends of mine that were there said, oh my God, what he made you do. You know? So that's cool. But being an audiobook nerd, if you go into a party or somebody doesn't know you, if they find out or you mention that you've just done an audiobook, it starts the whole evening up, doesn't it Danielle? Everybody wants to know what you're doing. They're very curious about it.

Laura Maylene Walter (47:58):
Yeah, it is definitely interesting. I would love to go to a party and meet a bunch of audiobook narrators. Because it seems like such a secret job in a way. Right? Sort of like being a writer. Again, you're alone in a studio, maybe in a closet just draped in clothes, talking into a microphone.

Danielle Muething (48:14):
And most people don't know what you look like.

Laura Maylene Walter (48:16):
Yeah, that's true.

Danielle Muething (48:17):
There are a lot of narrators. Even the ones who make videos, we'll just use their logo. I know there have been things in the past where there's like things about how old you are or doesn't matter. I don't know why any of it matters because it's just my voice. But ageism and all that can happen and that's why some people will hide the way they look. But that's another thing, like you might meet somebody and you're like, why does your voice sound familiar?

Laura Maylene Walter (48:40):
<Laugh> I love that. And yeah, it's funny because as a writer you feel like you're alone and anonymous a lot of the times. But our pictures do end up on book jackets and websites and in the press et cetera. And audiobook narrators don't, they're just, they're a name. Which I actually really love. Maybe I should become an audiobook narrator instead so no one can look at me. That'd be great <laugh>. Well, I really appreciate both of you taking this time to teach me about the art of audiobook narration, and to give our listeners some very important tips. I think this will be really useful for everyone. So thank you both so much for being here.

Danielle Muething (49:15):
Thank you.

Gary Leo Smith (49:15):
Thank you very much.

Laura Maylene Walter (49:21):
Page Count is presented by the Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review for Page Count wherever you get your podcast. Learn more online or find a transcript of this episode at ohiocenterforthebook.org. Follow us on Instagram @ohiocenterforthebook or find us on Facebook. If you'd like to get in touch, email ohiocenterforthebook@cpl.org and put "podcast" in the subject line. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back in two weeks for another chapter of Page Count.